Five with something to prove
Spotlight on Fuller, Johnson, Roby, Murray and Dunn as camp starts
This week, the Texans are expected to be on the practice field for the first time since they prepared for January’s divisional-round playoff game at Kansas City, where they blew a 24-point lead and lost 51-31.
The Texans’ rookies and first-year players report to training camp Monday, but before they can begin conditioning drills at Houston Methodist Training Center, they have to test negative for COVID-19.
The veterans have to report by Saturday. Once they’ve tested negative for the virus, they’ll join the rookies for the conditioning part of camp.
The NFL has hired a company to put mobile units at team facilities. Players and other personnel can undergo testing by nasal swab and get results in 24 hours.
When the full squad participates in camp and prepares for the regular season, a lot of players will have something to prove, including five who stand out: receiver Will Fuller, running back David Johnson, cornerback Bradley Roby, safety Eric Murray and nose tackle Brandon Dunn.
Let’s start with the mercurial Fuller, who’s capable of generating mind-boggling numbers if only he can stay healthy for a full season, something he’s never done.
To analyze what Fuller is capable of doing in collaboration with quarterback Deshaun Watson, let’s look at the difference he made while on the field last season, when he finished with a career-high 49 catches for 670 yards, including a career-best 14 plays of 20 or more yards.
Not counting the game at Indianapolis, where he had one catch on the second play of the game and left with a hamstring injury, the four games he missed because of injuries and the last game, in which he was kept out, Fuller played 10 full games. The Texans averaged 25.7 points.
In those six games he missed all or almost all of, they averaged 20.1 points, a 5.6-point difference.
This is Fuller’s fifth season and the last year of his contract. If he stays healthy and produces the kind of big plays his coaches and teammates know he can make, he’ll be in line for a big raise. If he can’t stay healthy again, there’s a good chance he’ll be looking for a new team.
Coach Bill O’Brien showed a lot of faith in Johnson when he had the running back included in the trade with Arizona for receiver DeAndre Hopkins.
This is the fourth consecutive season Johnson will have played for a new coach, and he should be properly motivated because of the way his career ended with the Cardinals.
In 2019, Johnson missed three games because of injuries, lost his starting job in Kliff Kingsbury’s first season as coach, and finished with 345 yards rushing, 370 receiving and six touchdowns. That’s 671 fewer yards from scrimmage and four fewer touchdowns than he accumulated in 2018, when he was healthy and started every game.
Johnson was acquired to replace Carlos Hyde and his 1,070 yards rushing in the starting lineup. He has to justify O’Brien’s willingness to pay his $10.2 million base salary. If Johnson disappoints, the Texans will be looking for a fourth starting back in a fourth consecutive season in 2021.
On the other side of the ball, first-year defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver needs Roby to stay healthy, Dunn to do a reasonable impersonation of D.J. Reader, and Murray to show the Texans had a good reason to sign him to a three-year, $18 million contract that could be worth up to $20.5 million.
In his first season with the Texans, Roby played well enough to get a new three-year contract for $31.5 million that could be worth at least $36 million. He was worth the $10 million the Texans gave him last year, but he missed six games with a hamstring injury.
Roby needs to stay healthy, contribute big plays and perform well enough to have more than two interceptions for the first time in his seven-year career. Roby is loaded with talent and needs to excel under new secondary coach D’Anton Lynn.
The Texans surprised a lot of NFL people when they signed Murray, who has started only 15 games in four seasons, including four with Cleveland in 2019.
In 2018, the last of his three seasons at Kansas City, where he was a fourth-round pick in 2016, Murray started a career-high nine games.
The Texans like Murray because they believe he can play multiple spots in Weaver’s defense, including safety and slot corner. He also figures to be a terrific special teams player. It’s up to Lynn to make sure Murray makes a smooth transition on the playing field from the virtual offseason program. The defense needs Murray to contribute right away because there’s not a lot of depth at safety.
Last but not least is Dunn. He had six starts at defensive end last season. In 2017 and 2018, he started 18 games at nose tackle when Reader was moved to end.
Dunn isn’t as talented as Reader, who signed with Cincinnati as a free agent. He isn’t a pass rusher, but that’s not what the Texans are paying him to do.
The coaches need for Dunn to be 3-4 nose tackle who plays one or two downs before going to the bench in passing situations. They need him to tie up two blockers and free the linebackers to make the tackles. Dunn has performed that function well enough in the past, and now he’s got to do it again when he’s replacing Reader, one of the team’s best players last season.